comment by mitt romney was getting a lot of publicity, his tax returns wut o there. let me play for you what was said when i asked what do you make of the polls. >> they're overpolling democrats to push up the president's numbers. >> is this what the romney camp really believes, matt? is it correct? >> you know, think ear going to grasp at any straw that they can. it's a problem of what happens when you nominate an electability candidate in the primary season, right? he looks nice. you can take him home to mom. . and then you have to transfer to a general election. you have to try to avoid saying anything to make a case for yourself and those are two different things. >> the question becomes what do you do. one of the things they talked about, they said it in "the new york times," let's get mitt romney and paul ryan out on the

road together because ryan seems to loosen him up a little bit. but then, you know, some people are making fun of what happened in ohio yesterday. let me play that clip for you. >> wow. that's quite a guy, isn't it? paul ryan. isn't that something? >> ryan! ryan! >> wait a second. romney, ryan. romney, ryan. romney, ryan. there you go. i guess the question becomes are people pushing him into something he's not? he got good interviews in. is the trouble in part when romney tries not to be romney? >> yeah, i think it's ironic that they're saying let ryan be ryan. but throughout then tire process, we've really not been 100% clear who mitt romney is, right, because the guy who was governor of massachusetts, had he run as that guy, he would have been more like the guy we saw on "60 minutes."

he's been forced to run this eternal primary where he's constantly trying to please the farthest right base of the republican party and so he isn't really being allowed to make what is supposed to be a pivot to a general election candidacy. so i think the problem really is partly that. then they've tried to pull romney into the ryan mold. they vnld allowed ryan to do what he was picked to do, which is talks on policy because they understand that would be even more unpopular than what they're putting out there right now? >> is it that his instincts aren't good, he's being given bad advice? somehow it's not working. >> these are his conscious decisions. he's been running way from specifics from day one as a way to win the presidency. paul ryan is not a nominee as much as a gesture. he's a way to say to the fess cal conservative base, we're thinking of you, we want to please you, but he's not

adopting ryan's actual policies. he's making ryan swallow those and smother them. he's trying to hold a mirror up to the country in such a way that he doesn't have to steake any controversial positions himself. that way you get -- >> i mean isn't that ironically the idea of the ceo president has always been if you can run a business, you can run the country. but i think this is showing the worst of what ceos do, member miezing the truth about losses can, which we saw in enron, acting like every's fine when he said the candidacy doesn't need retooling. >> you know, one of the things that we should say about mitt romney is that some of these polls over the last couple of weeks have shown that barack obama is losing a little bit in foreign policy and they seem to sense maybe there's an opportunity there. here he is criticizing the president for his handling of

the libyan consulate attack. >> i think there have been a number of members in the administration, including state department who said this was a terrorist attack. the white house and the president are continuing not to admit what their own administration is saying, and i think it's pretty clear that they haven't wanted to level with the american people. >> the campaign obviously things they can get some traction on that. do you think they can? >> i thank can because on this case the facts are kind of on his side. i mean the obama administration's reaction to the libyan attack, specifically blaming it on the video for ore a week really wasn't a fine moment for him. he should level with the american people. if you don't know anything, don't say anything. he can get traks. he made some missteps and so he was unable to take vax of that as much as he could. but he definitely can do so in the future. >> i want to bring in tom ridge. he's, of course, the former governor of pennsylvania. good to have you here.

>> thank you for having me here. >> ann curry also talked to thi let me play that. >> what was your evidence that it was a preplanned attack of terrorism? >> number one was choosing the date, 11th of september. it has all the significance. if we take the facts about the way it was executed, you can see there's enough proof that it was a preplanned act of terrorism that help us to understand the importance of this phrase "act of terrorism," and why do you think the president won't say that, even though some members of his team, including his spokesman has? >> well, you ask me a great question to go into president obama's mind to explain what i he doesn't do something and that's above my pay grade.

>> does it send a message? >> early on in the admin strarks he was afraid to use the word "terrorism." they were manmade events. we had the attorney general talking about treating them as criminals. there's been an effort from the administration to try to stay away from that term and frankly if you caulk to stevens' family and the other three families, they're deceased and we can play the rhetorical plan, it's pretty clear. the libyan official, boots on the ground, said it was a terrorist act. they don't normally show up with rpgs and grenades and other things if it's going to be a peaceful demonstration. it certainly looks prearranged. who's responsible we don't know yet but we'll find out. >> it's clear now that these have become part of a dialogue in the presidential campaign. one of the things the libyan

president also said to ann curry, it lacks to be a branch of al qaeda. that's something we heard after the benghazi attack happened. where do you think we are now in terms of terrorism. obviously as the president said, the traditional al qaeda as we know it seems to have been decimated. top leaders including osama bin laden are gone but where are we? >> i think again that's a statement. the ail die is the al qaeda. there are mutant forms. there are a lot of wannabes and look-alikes. i think active terrorism in spite of the fact that the president rightly has given some credit for eliminated osama bin land, it's a misnomer and somewhat naive to say merely because you cut the head of the organization, now you have other groups affiliated, oftentimes

rhetorically affiliated but others given guidance from others and the arabian peninsula. it ooh's dominant force in the region in cahoots from time to time with the iranian influence as well. we're going be dealing with activism terrorism, look-alikes and wannabes. >> i'm going to ask you to play chameleon again. this is a question people are thinking about. if you were a moderator at one of these debates, what do you think is the central question you would want to ask both of the candidates in terms of our security, our battle against terrorism. >> well, i think there's a tendency to focus on al qaeda. as i said before there are a lot of forms but i think the central question in this region and around the world is iran. there are a lot of other

terrorist organizations that are involved in vapsing their interest in violent acts. interest in acts. you've got jihad, hezbollah, iran supporting the syrian government. i think one of the biggest questions would be what are we going to do about iran. unfortunately i think this is where the president is somewhat vulnerable. sanctions have really never worked, especially with the parti partied. but when they had an uprising in 2009, massive demonstration and there was a group called the mak. many of them were taken off the streets and tortured and murdered. there's democratic opposition in iran. we've recognized it across the

middle east but not iran. that's a question that should be asked. >> there may be thousands of people will be out where mahmoud ahmadinejad will be speaking today. let me bring back the panelists. what is the question we know that's going to be rise to the top? could it change the equation in some way? >> i thing we could. i think what most americans are thinking about is, hey, the em ba is i's under attack. you're right. foreign policy is more of an issue in in election than it was in 2008 which is something very few people would have predicted going into 2008 for sure. it's unpredictable with the arab spring. it's a very fluid dynamic. president obama gave a speech at the u.n. yesterday which i thought was interesting and pretty incoherent. said we're not going to

determine the democratic outcomes of what's happening there and at the same time the syrian leader must step down and a nuclear weapon for iran is intolerable. i think both parties have a pretty good co-heirens about the u.s. power in that world and that's going to make things pretty dynamic for a long time. >> is it unclear? >> i think it's an important thing and i think it has been been too little of a debate. this is primarily a dough necessary tick policy of the elect. the majority is not thinking of these. they're primarily voting on domestic issues. you now have a country that's exhausted with two wars. he's made such a hash when it comes to his tour and going over to europe and the first 24 hours of the libyan debate was so

mismanaged. the president has a record. what has been done to al qaeda, getting to the end. i think his standing is good even if his numbers slip out of this concern. >> we're just about out of time. i want to get back to the governor and ask you what do you want to accomplish today? you and the bipartisan politicians and protesters. >> i want to say thank you to the secretary of state. all of us republicans, elected officials, democrats, military officials, we felt it should never have been on the list to begin with. we want to thank her for doing that. it's supported democratic opposition. the mek we think is the largest

and best. there are others we want to recognize and our goal today is to have the u.n. take look at the mek at camp liberty. call it a refugee camp so they're pretexted. the maliki government has gone in on two occasions. they surrendered their arms to our military. we want to encourage our european allies to resettle this and talk about regime change. if you want to avoid the war and agree sanctions aren't working, let's start supporting publicly the democratic opposition. take a look at the countries in the middle east. it's time we start. >> governor ridge, good to have you on the program. thank you so much. we'll be watching you later today. thank you joann and mitch. nbc's bob costas says the

call was atrocious. i asked him what the nfl is going do about it. he's coming up. we have sad news to pass along, this in the last few minutes. legendary andy williams died last night at his home. the 84-year-old had bladder cancer. he had 17 gold, three platinum records. he was best known, of course, if singing "moon river." he had his own show on msnbc. it launched in 1962, and an annual christmas show too. ♪ it's the best time of the year ♪ it's the hap happiest season of all ♪ [ male announcer ] if you stash tissues

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singing "moon river." it's one of the rare instances in this presidential campaign where both sides see eye to eye. it's this botched call made by

the nfl's replacement refs made in the final play at the seattle/degree bays game that gave the seahawks the win. the president weighed in, tweeting, both sides of the ail, hope the refs' lockout is settled soon. >> did you guys watch that packer game last night? i mean give me a break. i half think that these refs work part-time for the obama administration in the budget office. >> i'd sure like to see some experienced refr res with nfl experience come back out on the nfl playing fieldings. >> joining me now is bob costas from nbc sports. bob, good morning. >> hi, chris. >> you know this something crazy when we've got all these different politicians agreeing that the call was bad. how because was it? >> it was atrocious. they should have gotten it right on the field with the naked eye and then i'm very surprised the

official didn't overturn it. if there isn't conclusive evidence that the call is wrong, they're supposed to let it stand. but to virtually everybody with a television set, especially with a high-def television set, there was no question about it. it should have been overturned. >> the twitosphere going crazy. what's going on here. >> it's $3 x million a year give or take, more than $140,000 a team. there's a dispute over pensions. the oh fishfficials have pensio the league wants to change it to a 401(k). thapd want to be able to bench. it's to urge them to do bet ore

their may be replaced by others. but those are the issues. those issues seem small compared to the calls in the game. >> it certainly doesn't make sense to a lot of people, certainly not the fans. the statements i'm reading from the nfl, there doesn't seem to be a sense urgency. are they going to take a hand over it. >> not yet. all the conversation about it and ally uproar indicates how interested they are. the league proves, at least most of the time, how concerned it is with getting calls right by replaying even relatively inconsequential plays five or six times and reviewing them in the middle of games, and yet with these replacement officials, it isn't just calls blown at the end of games.

they don't understand the rules many of them. you can hardly blame them. so there have been a lot of procedure problems. they lose control of the game. and they also say they're concerned about the safety of players. it's an inherently violent game. so the league has these two objectives which it says it stands by. getting as many calls as they can correct and protecting the players. >> i also wonder. have this situation. there have been other bad calls but the call went for the home team. what if it doesn't, bob? >> you know, mike lupika of the new york daily news made that point and it's great one. the call of game in baltimore on a field goal that was very close happened to be the correct call and it happened to go for the

home team. this was an incorrect call and it went for the home team. but wait until a game-ending game decided call is in dispute, even if it happens to be correct. if it's close enough to be in dispute and it somehow goes against the home team, you wonder what might happen in the stadium, gimp the fact that fan behavior is of concern, drinking in the stadium. barnyard chants. this isn't fwakt exactly the high point of civil it. you don't know what would happen. >> whaun does it look like this thing might get settled? >> not this week. i think they go into this weekend again with the replacement officials. i don't even know how to guess on this. i would think in the next few weeks, but nothing certain. >> bob costas, it's always great to see you, bob. thank you for coming on the program. >> thank you.

no replacement for todd akin. he said he's staying in the senate race. the question is who will help him win? some are sending support to pollers, polling them to see if they want to get involved. and a short time ago demint and former candidate rick santorum are endorsing him. his senate oh opponent claire mccaskill just released this add. >> on august 19, todd akin said only some rapes are legitimate. what will he say next. the econy needs manufacturing. machines, tools, people making stuff. companies have to invest in making things. infrastructure, construction, production. we need it now more than ever. chevron's putting more than $8 billion dollars back in the u.s. economy this year. in pipes, cement, steel, jobs, energy.

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to politics now where madonna is defending her commenting about the president. she said she was being ironic on stage when she called the president a black muslim. she's an outspoken obama supporter. in statement she pointed out it shouldn't matter what religion someone is anyway. ann romney joked, yes, her husband does shop at costco on jay leno. >> would you say he is frugal or cheap? >> cheap. y >> you want to know when we leave the house? he turns off the hot water

heater. you know what he forgets when we come home, he pretends to forget and says cold showers, they're not so bad. ross perot is writing a book called "my book." and class size. >> did romney say class size doesn't matter. >> it didn't seem to me that class size is the key. with president obama winding his lead in ohio and early voting begins there next week, today president obama and mitt romney are crisscrossing that state, making five campaign appearances between them. this is day three of romney's bus tour. here he was just a short time ago in suburban columbus. >> i care about the people of america, and the difference between me and president obama is i know what to do and i will do what it takes to get this economy going. >> i'm joining now by chris

kafinas and john braybender. gentlemen, good to see you again. >> good morning. >> okay, john. we keep saying this but i'm going to say it again. no republican has won the presidency without ohio. so what's mitt romney do now? >> well, thing that's right. i think he has to win not only ohio. i think e has to win probably virginia and florida as well. and i tlink's a couple of keys right now to mitt romney. you know, we saw in the primary. they said after the primary you can hit reset like an etch a sketch and change where you're going. think they're a little bit at that point where they've got to get a little sharper message. i think number one, they've got to get to know mitt romney more personally, not just as a ceo, but what kind of person he's like. numb beer two, they even got to put ideas out there that they're running on to get people excited about where they're going in the country, not just be a professional critic of the president.

>> one of the questions is whether or not he's playing it too safe. he's sitting back, letting the events lay out and he shouldn't get too complacent. when they say where is the audacity of barack obama, is it a fair question? >> well, i mean, it's not necessarily a fair question. i understand why people say it because when you won the first time, especially as the president did in 2008, the excitement, the energy, the fire, i mean it was a once-in-a-generation type of election. generations are not normally like that. when you have to go out there and defend ourselves and you're the subject of strong attacks. thing the problem is not that president obama's campaign is complacent. i don't think they are. and i don't think they take anything for granted. no one should. not with less than six weeks to go. the problem with the campaign is the romney campaign.

the romney campaign has the stink of death right now. i mean when you see polls in florida and ohio and you can argue about whether or not they're accurate or not. there are multiple ones coming out with high single-didn't leads, this is really bad. when you see polls showing you're not connecting with the middle class, that's really bad. when you have basically, again, a little less than six weeks to make your case, the romney campaign is about as terrible a position you can imagine. >> obviously you could imagine polls worse. but having said that, john, i'm not sure he even has six weeks. early voting starts next tuesday in ohio, as well as nebraska. i think it's already under way in idaho, vermont, iowa. wyoming. how does that change the campaign strategy? >> first i think you have to point out in almost every single poll obama is under 50% or at

which is warning to the president. he'll pick up very few undecided votes. the ads were information for your own party. the debates are going to start to pay attention and that happens right when early voting starts. so i would suggest that these debates are critical for mitt romney. and, frankly, i think that -- you know, you can say he's not connecting with the middle class. well, obama you could make the argument, hurt the middle class, and think that's a big part of what the debates are going to be about. >> what do you think they're going to be about, chris, and how important are they? >> they're incredibly important. because romney has been so beaten up, they're going to take another look at him. if he does well in his debates, he will energize his campaign. i think you're going to have the campaign being about two things.

the defendant is going to have to defend his record and there's going to have to be a very strong case for why his policies are wrong for the country. and basically governor romney is going to have to introduce himself at the same time he has to make a tough case against the president. that's a tough thick to do. president obama is a good debater. mitt romney is a good debater. i don't see any one of them falling flat. that's the problem for the romney debate. >> chris kofinis, did i just hear you not trying to manage expectations? >> i'm not good on expectations. the reality is they're both good debaters. >> is that true, john? do the debates favor one or the other? >> people know he's a very good debater but the problem he has is he still has to bring a record that i think bemost accounts is remarkably mediocre. i can tell you having run those

debates. he knows basically how to deliver a message. >> john brabender, chris kofinis, thank you. >> thank you. also this morning, 14 are dead, 14 others wunlded after two major explosions in syria. both were car bombs set off at the syrian army headquarters. a third explosion went off near the prime ministry. the targets were syria's top military commanders. >> things are calmer in greece but it got eggly on the streets of athens earlier. they're protesting new austerity measures. police were throwing tear gas because some were throwing molotov cocktails and stones. just recently we learned new home sales prices are home but home prices are up, which is good news. sales in august overall were almost 28% up from a year ago. and nickel and diming leads to billions for the airlines.

cnbc's michelle cabrera-caruso is here. >> united came in second with more than 200 million. the airlines argue they need you to do this for two reasons, right? they've got higher gasoline costs than they've had over the last several years. that helps them offset it and it also reduces cargo, so you're less likely to bring a bag. it weighs less and gets the double effect. this is the most money ever collected for baggage fees. remember, they're pretty new. only happened in 2008, 2009. >> and yet we're all having to get used to them. cnbc's michelle cabreka caruso cabrera . >> they're out with information on america's deadliest jobs. number five, roofers, number

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past presidents are still influential in today's politics. just yesterday at the clinton global initiative, both candidates appeared with former president bill clinton. you often hear president obama talking about lincoln, mitt romney talking about ronald reagan, and now "newsweek" is out with a list of the ten best presidents since 1900. sir harold evans who is author of the fabulous, "the american century" has a tribute. it's a ploesh to have you here. >> thank you, madam. >> you gaekted together ten distinguished historians. what was the criteria? >> the criteria was what kind of active presidents were they. it's very interesting. the historians, all -- every single one of them chose franklin roosevelt as number one. >> why? >> best president since theodore roosevelt in the beginning of the century. if you ask them why he did that, he was active and effective,

those two things. and he had a sense of america's ideal of itself. so they took those criteria. they didn't know what the others were doing. they all voted and it's interesting the top three -- >> so it wasn't a big sitting around the table and discussing this. >> no, no. it was all in isolation. they locked them in a room with an ice pack and 5,000 volumes of their own works and said, come up with -- >> that doesn't sound like fun. >> all of them, they pretty much agreed on lyndon johnson as one, two, three. the bottom, nonetheless, in this select ten tharksd ronald reagan and barack obama. now, chris -- >> let me talk about ronald reagan because it is fascinating that when you're out on the campaign trail, it doesn't matter if you're democrat or rupp, a lot of people invoke ronald reagan. i'm going to play a clip of some

of those recent sound bites. >> president after his recession. we created over a million jobs in a month. >> what ronald reagan was calling for then was the same thing we're calling for now, a return to basic fairness and responsibility. >> they obviously must know something. not only did historians like him but a lot of americans loved ronald reagan. >> you're quite right, chris. as well as the historians poll, they're all discontintinguished authors, the pollsters went out and asks the people a. what did the people say. who did they put? >> ronald reagan. >> ronald reagan. >> number one. >> who did they put number two? >> i'm going have to cheat. bill clinton. isn't that interesting. >> number three. franklin roosevelt. so as far as barack obama, by the way, barack obama scored mid left in both polls. >> interesting. i mean maybe not for people

today because he obviously is very popular certainly with democrats, but for historians to choose a living president. >> they chose him as number ten of the 20. they put him at the bottom of the list just below ronald reagan. but it is interesting. the popular people put him in the middle of achievements. it was one of the top ten in the country, so they excluded george w. bush. to my regret they excluded george herbert walker bush who i personally thing they deserved more credit than they got. the popular vote excluded woodrow wilson. woodrow wilson charted american history for the next years. >> what do you make of the breakdown if you look at the list that's used democratic. out of ten, only three are republicans. >> yeah. i mean the people, four were

republicans, but wi biand large you have to look at who the republicans are. you've about got warren harding who was always drunk and making love in a closet. corrupt. you've got herbert hoover, decent made who made a screw -u on the depression. and calvin coolidge. he gave his wife a present, a bag of socks. 53 socks, darned the holes in them. that was the kind of imagination calvin cool lilk had. then you have george -- and in the poll, i have to say i don't think "newsweek" would mind this coming out, but i was told that among the worst presidents they chose the worst presidents. there were two. republicans. warren harding of the drunking whiskey party and george w. bush. >> really. from the historians. >> that's from the historians. >> what else can you tell us that "newsweek" might not want us to know? >> i don't know.

my lips o sealed. it's an incredibly interesting poll because if you go back -- if you go back, you get washington, jefferson. true, washington was the greatest man in american history, but to do from theodore res velt the inspired idea of "newsweek's", i thought, and i thought the historians -- the individual rankings are being published in the "newsweek" ipad of what they all voted. and it's fascinating. now, dan kevers actually weighted them all. >> it is fascinating. people can find it either on their news stands or ipad. sir harold evans. what a pleasure to have you on the program. come back, will you? >> yes, i will. >> thank you. the tweet of the day comes from "the washington post" chris ill lis za who tweets, if bob wins in november, how much credit does bill clinton get?

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voter registration drives kick into high gear as voter i.d. battles continue to percola percolate, percolate, percolate. >> like coffee bubbling around. >> richard lui is here. let's take a look at some of the dates, decisions. >> good morning, chris. it's crunch time for voter i.d. registration. october 2 nd is an important dae to watch. a decision has to be made. without them, voters may not be able to vote because of the state's new i.d. law. now that decision may be appealed which would put a final resolution near election day, but there are officials who do not think tit works. >> also this week voter requirements facing tough

scrutiny from a special panel of tough judges there. the requirement is does the requirement at polling stations cause a burden. it must meet certain requirements. another date to watch for you, today. this is national voter registration month, to remind voters that in october, 48 states have registration deadlines. at stake here, 6 million potential voters or more. the national association of secretary of state say that's how many in 2008 that did not vote because they missed registration deadlines. and if florida reg station numbers are any indication here, look at this. compared to july and previous elections, look, democrats are way off pace in that debattleground state of florida. this year they're only 5% of last election, and, chris, that's why it's not only the voter i.d. turnout. >> that's a huge number. that's going to wrap up this

hour of "jansing & co." on thursday join me when my guests will include carl bernstein and the former governor of florida, charlie crist. i'm christine jansing. thomas roberts is up next. >> hi, chris, good morning, everybody. president obama and mitt romney duking it out for every vote in the buckee state with a new poll showing the president opening up some much wider leads in critical battleground states. ow power panel is going to way in on that one. the nfl blind-sided by the referee standoff that's outraged everyone with the integrity of a $10 billion industry at stake, is the any way out of this mess. could michelle obama get away with ann romney's fire on the campaign trail? melissa perry is going to join me in sounding off after this. in one daily dose.

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i'm also a survivor of ovarian a writand uterine cancers. i even wrote a play about that. my symptoms were a pain in my abdomen and periods that were heavier and longer than usual for me. if you have symptoms that last two weeks or longer, be brave, go to the doctor. ovarian and uterine cancers are gynecologic cancers. symptoms are not the same for everyone. i got sick...and then i got better. hi, everybody. good morning. topping the agenda today, buckeye state brawl, all roads

to the white house lead through ohio today as president obama and mitt romney literally chris-crossed that state with dueling speeches just hours from now. this is the president's 29th visit to ohio since taking office, far more than any other swing state in the nation. if you believe the latest battleground polling, the efforts are paying off. in ohio where early voting starts next week, the president leads by ten points. the president is also leading mitt romney by nine points in florida and in pennsylvania. the president leading by a full 12 points. 42% to 54%. all three state ace peer to be slipping from mitt romney's grasps sparking another round of political pundit hand-wringing this morning. take a look. >> that's quite a guy, isn't it? paul ryan. isn't that something? >> ryan, ryan, ryan. >> wait a second. romney, ryan. romney, wine. >> oh, sweet jesus. >> i'm a stand-in at the campaign. >> we don't want to write

obituaries. we're a month away from the elections. when we look at what we're seeing and what you're talking, what can romney do at this point to change the forces of gravity? >> they're depending now on a barack obama implosion. the states are so big that they need obama to go down as they're going up. >> a lot to talk about today. let's say hi to ben la bolt. he is the national come pain manger here. we're hearing to hear from president mahmoud ahmadinejad at the u.n. when he starts speaking, we want to take part of that address. if we jump out, forgive me, but we want to make sure we get that. both sides are out with a new campaign ad, both featuring romney's 41% remarks. i want to get everybody up to speed. take a look. >> president obama and i both care about poor and middle-class families. the difference is my policies will make things better for them. we shouldn't measure compassion by how many people are on